I am a nature-lover. Ever since I was a child, I wandered through woods and on water shores; a fisherman and a hunter, I love off-roading and I find happiness in any nature outing. Through these personal experiences, I’ve developed certain opinions regarding the ideal tools and, in my eyes, the knife qualifies as the most important.

I graduated from University and continued with postgraduate studies; however, at some point, I decided to invest all my energy, passion and time pursuing a career in what I really enjoyed doing. I still hope that one can make a decent living from this craft and that “made in China” is a different enoughof a concept from what I am offering.

How it all started

I started building custom knives more than 10 years ago, not counting my “apprenticeship”, which began around the time I was 12 years old and lasted for 12 years…

Although the path towards acquiring the optimal equipment for this craft is long, costly and will never end, there was a time when what I am doing today in a workshop was accomplished with a few tools on a work bench.

I started building custom knives motivated by passion, to help and satisfy my friends and customers that didn’t find the ideal knife they were looking for. As time went by, I started applying own rules to clients: I refuse to build knives that I don’t like and I don’t require any deposit. I want to keep working in the same manner I did when I started: taking pleasure and investing passion in each knife. Even when referencing a model proposed by the customer, I will create it by employing my own vision; if, in the end, the customer is not happy with the finished product, he is free to refuse it. I guide myself by the principle that the sumthe knife has been evaluated for at the beginning will ultimately reflect in the value of the product, regardless of whether the person that ordered it buys it, or someone else.

The price I ask for is the sum of the raw materials, production costs and an assessment of the work involved. I always try to keep it decent and affordable. Although at first sight the pricing may seem high, a quick search on the Internet (in this case, an objective, unbiased source) will provide a basis for comparing products made out of similar materials. The steels I am using are top-ranked for knife steels.

My client

A very passionate hunter, outdoorsman or cook, aware of a quality knife’s importance and requiring a knife he can depend on in any situation.

Far from being a universal tool, a knife is a very precise one, designed for cutting and thrusting, and some of its particularities may even further relegate it for a specific use.

A knife is a good knife as long as it fulfills the functionalities it has been bought for. A custom (handmade) knife will reflect and accomplish said purposes much closer, significantly better than a production (factory) knife will.

How a knife should be used

The knife is a tool or a weapon.

Far be it from me to lecture on the use of knives as tools, but I would still suggest the following recommendations to be considered:

1.A knife should always have a keen edge; a blunt knife is more dangerous than a sharp one, as more power will have to be exerted over it to cut something and this force will be hard to control if released suddenly.

2.A knife is a fine tool - it is not an axe, chisel, can opener or machete; these are different tools, meant for specific tasks and employing a knife as their substitute is not proper use. “Abusing” a knife in such a manner will certainly damage it, more or less.

3.Generally speaking, a knife will have distinguishing features, depending on its intended use.

A meat slicer will have a thin and fine blade, sharpened at a low angle in order to maximize penetration; an outdoor knife will have a thick blade sharpened at a more obtuse angle, in order to hold up to rougher use, such as wood chopping. These are but two examples out of the tens of existing categories.

4.When buying a knife, try to define the scope of its intended use first, otherwise it will most likely fall short of your expectations in regards to its performance or durability.

5.The knife should be kept in its sheath clean and dry. After use, the knife should be wiped clean of any residue or liquids and placed in its sheath, even if it will be used again a few minutes later.

6.The knife is not a throwing implement; it will certainly sustain damage if thrown at wood or other hard substance. The shock of the sudden stop (in case it reached its intended target) or hitting a surface with the handle (or any other part of the knife) will destroy the handle or even cause vibrations that may break the blade. Unless your knife has specifically been designed as a throwing knife, please do not use it as such.

7.The knife should be kept sharp, by using appropriate sharpening stones after each use that dulled it even slightly. Besides the already-mentioned danger posed by using a blunt knife, a knife with a severely-damaged edge will be much harder to get sharp again, as opposed to touching up an edge each time it is needed.

8.Cutting up hard substances, such as metal, stones etc. or even just hitting them with the edge, will undoubtedly affect the edge, and the harder the steel is, the more the steel will be affected.

9.Checking “which steel is better” by hitting two knives edge on edge is a sure way to destroy the edge gratuitously and irrelevantly for the intended “conclusion”. The ability to withstand impacts with hard objects depends chiefly on the sharpening angle and the hardness of the steel. For sure a nail made out of a soft steel or a chisel will significantly chip the edge of a straight razor; that is not because the steel of the razor is a “bad steel” but because the edge on the razor is much thinner.

10.Knives can be hardened higher or lower (on the Rockwell hardness scale), depending on the steel’s type and the intended use of the knife. Generally speaking, inferior steels cannot be hardened at higher values and, in order to compensate for this, knives made out of them will usually have a thick edge and be sharpened at higher angles. A fine edge on a knife that has a high hardness, although will retain its sharpness during repeated test cuts significantly longer, will be very sensible under repeated impacts and has the tendency to chip very easily. One should not consider that this is happening because of the steel being worse, but because a very good steel is used inadequately.